American Involvement

• Prime Minister (1946–1955)

• President (1945–1969) of the North Vietnam, called the Democratic Republic of Vietnam

• Lost power in late 1950s, but remained a figurehead

• President of South Vietnam

• Nationalistic• Catholic• Anti-communist• Corrupt and

despotic

• US sides with anti-communist South Vietnam even though its government is corrupt

• ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) South Vietnam

North Vietnamese aided by• Vietcong (insurgents in the South fighting for the north; enemy of US)

• A US destroyer on patrol off the coast of Vietnam was torpedoed by No Vietnamese

• Johnson asked and was given a resolution from the US Congress to engage in conventional warfare in Southeast Asia without a formal declaration of war

• Secretary of Defense

• Most important policy-maker of the Vietnam War

• American military commander

• Strategy of “attrition” measuring success not by territory claimed, but by number of enemy killed

• “body counts”

• A strategy of gradually intensified bombing of North Vietnam• Strategic; did not include airfields or

missile sites under construction where Chinese or Soviet advisors would be; did not include dikes or dams or anything that would hurt civilian population;

• January 30, 1968 • Usually Tet had been observed as a truce time

• General Westmoreland had just issued a statement that the enemy had been dispersed

• North and Vietcong attacked key cities and every major American base in South Vietnam• 30,000 from North or Vietcong were killed

Major psychological blow to the USCould the public believe military or government officials?

Presidential advisors began to devise plans to disengage, believing goal of holding communism out of South Vietnam unlikely.

“Vietnamization” Rely on the Vietnamese to make

determinations

• "I shall not seek, and I will not accept, the nomination of my party for another term ...

• strengthen South Vietnamese military and government• disarm anti-war movement at home by

replacing US soldiers with So Vietnamese• negotiate with both North Vietnam and

Soviet Union• intensive bombing

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e3/Henry_Kissinger.jpg

• 1968 there were 543,000 US troops in Vietnam• 1971 reduced to 140,000• During the last four years of the war,

20,000 Americans died

• Spring 1969 Nixon began a secret bombing campaign in Cambodia• April 1970, Nixon ordered a joint

ARVN –US invasion of Cambodia

• My Lai Massacre, March 1968 • US Army Company tortured and massacred

a village of between 350 to 500 people• It was not reported until a year later• Lt William Calley put on trial beginning

November 1970• He was the only one convicted

• June 1971, publication of the Pentagon Papers, a secret government study critical of US policy in Vietnam. • Daniel Ellsberg, who worked on the

project but did not feel anyone paid attention, gave a copy to the New York Times • Later published in book form

• the New York Times said that the Pentagon Papers "demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance"

• To ensure the possibility of public debate about the content of the papers, U. S. Senator Mike Gravel (D-Alaska) entered 4,100 pages of the Papers into the record of his Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds.

• After that, it could not legally be suppressed

• North Vietnam’s poor economy made it need substantial assistance from China and Soviets• In 1967 alone, China provided 600,000 tons of rice, and small arms, ammunition;• The Soviets contributed (to compete with China) tanks, fighter planes, surface-to-air missiles, and other weapons.

• Determination of the population• Ability of the North Vietnamese government

to dispatch tens of thousands of citizens in the effort

1. Would a more aggressive (military) strategy have brought the Soviets and or China into the war?

2. Can strategic bombing work as well in the third world guerilla war as between major industrial powers?

3. Why did Johnson not do a full out bombing campaign?• Concerned (like Truman) about upsetting China that had nuclear weapons and 700 million men